Write your name in Tengwar (Tolkien's Elvish)

August 29, 2006 10:18 PM

Write your name in Tengwar, the Elvish language/alphabet created by JRR Tolkien. You can work with Tengwar fonts based on Middle Earth languages and runes and see many examples of the script via a Google Image search. According to Tolkien, "there is quite a bit of linguistic wisdom in it." There are certainly websites devoted to his languages and thier history. And It took some thought and work to make the speech sound right in the movies.
posted by persona non grata (27 comments total)

Outside of the various elven languages Tolkien created, there definately is wisdom in Tengwar, and various natural class distinctions are visible in the way the characters are made. Rather, the way the characters are written relate to the actual physical matter of producing the sounds.
posted by taursir at 10:28 PM on August 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

Elen sila lumenn omentilmo.

And god DAMN am I embarrassed I know that, but at least it's not Klingon.
posted by quite unimportant at 10:29 PM on August 29, 2006

Here I always thought it was "Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo". ;)

Maybe I should be more embarassed to be correcting.
posted by taursir at 10:32 PM on August 29, 2006

Is there a word in Klingon for lonliness? Ah, yes: 'Garrrdock'
posted by jonson at 10:55 PM on August 29, 2006

How do you write "has left the building"?
posted by rob511 at 11:30 PM on August 29, 2006

Damn, I thought the "write your name" link would be some sort of magic web 2.0 thingy. Oh well.
posted by Orange Goblin at 11:32 PM on August 29, 2006

How do you say "Oyven Glaven" in Elvish?
posted by emjaybee at 11:46 PM on August 29, 2006

And don't forget: Write your name in Entish, definitely a magic Web 1.0 sort of thingy.
posted by wfitzgerald at 4:13 AM on August 30, 2006

It's web 1.0ish, but there is a site that can translate roman characters to Tengwar (the Elvish script) - it was linked in one of persona's pages. online Tengwar Transcriber. Make sure you change the output type to PNG or else you'll need to have one of the fonts from above installed.
posted by flameproof at 4:40 AM on August 30, 2006

NERRRRRRRRRRRRDSSSSSSS.
posted by Zozo at 7:12 AM on August 30, 2006

Meh. Carny talk's waaay cooler.
posted by Smart Dalek at 7:13 AM on August 30, 2006

I can't find the exact quote, but I once read that J.R.R. Tolkein wrote the Middle Earth books as a vehicle for all of the languages he invented, and the author made the point that it was equivalent to starting a platinum-record making rock band because you happened to have a large amount of empty jewel cases sitting around the house.
posted by illovich at 7:37 AM on August 30, 2006

Ainuyaxë!
posted by BlueMetal at 7:42 AM on August 30, 2006

I though this was about TEGWAR, The Exciting Game Without Any Rules.
posted by fixedgear at 9:18 AM on August 30, 2006

And god DAMN am I embarrassed I know that, but at least it's not Klingon.
Even though the Sunday supplements would have us believe it, it's still manifestly not considered cool to be a geek. Which is too bad; I think it's basically anti-intellectualism. < /derail>
posted by jiawen at 9:31 AM on August 30, 2006

Quenya is NOT an empty jewel case. The analogy is flawed. Deeply.
posted by geekhorde at 9:57 AM on August 30, 2006

Amen jiawen.

Being 'cool' is for chumps anyway. It's far cooler not to care about being cool.
posted by geekhorde at 9:57 AM on August 30, 2006

Quenya is NOT an empty jewel case. The analogy is flawed. Deeply.

I agree.

He made the stories up because he felt you can't have a real language without people to speak it. I think the analogy would be more correct if you said it's like starting a band because you have written a bunch of songs.
posted by dnash at 10:24 AM on August 30, 2006

How do you say "escapism" in elvish?
posted by Citizen Premier at 11:22 AM on August 30, 2006

Y'all might find these links interesting:

The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship
quenya lapseparma
Elven Language Page
Common to Elven
Now We Have All Got Elvish Names

And, of course:

The Elvish Name Generator

I'm not really into Elvish as a language, although learning it would be nerdy cool, I use these links for character names in games (World of Warcraft at the moment). And, in general, I'm a name nerd. I have lots 'n' lots of name links.
posted by deborah at 12:24 PM on August 30, 2006

deborah, have you seen my page of Chinese names for gamers? It might conceivably be of use to you, if you collect that kind of links.
posted by jiawen at 3:00 PM on August 30, 2006

This isn't exactly new, y'know, Some of us have been doing this since we owned Commodore Amigas.
posted by keptwench at 4:28 PM on August 30, 2006

I once saw a Tolkien documentary in which he discussed the languages he made up. The professor said something like, "I can't imagine anyone sitting around speaking Elvish." Then the film cut to a bunch of Renaissance Fair types doing exactly that. Pretty funny stuff.

Khazad barak! Khazad ai menu!
posted by diddlegnome at 7:20 PM on August 30, 2006

Actually, what I think I meant was:

Baruk Khazad! Khazad Ai-Menu!

Obviously, I need to go back and reread the books.
posted by diddlegnome at 7:23 PM on August 30, 2006

Quenya is NOT an empty jewel case. The analogy is flawed. Deeply.

I think the analogy (while it does have a certain flaw) meant more to communicate that he had vast stores of something no one would care about (invented languages) and because he wanted to share them, he invented something that ended up being a huge success, but that the successful venture was secondary to his love of the successful venture.

Perhaps it would be a better analogy if it was changed to:

J.R.R. Tolkein wrote the Middle Earth books as a vehicle for all of the languages he invented, and the author made the point that it was equivalent to starting a platinum-record making rock band because you had a deep passion for creating thousands of beautiful hand wrought cd cases, and you weren't sure what else to do with them.
posted by illovich at 6:32 AM on August 31, 2006

Thanks, jiawen! I hadn't run across that site before.
posted by deborah at 11:40 AM on August 31, 2006

I think this correction makes the best analogy:

J.R.R. Tolkein wrote the Middle Earth books as a vehicle for all of the languages he invented, and the author made the point that it was equivalent to starting a platinum-record making rock band because you need a vehicle for all of the languages you invented.
posted by team lowkey at 5:12 PM on August 31, 2006